Hacker groups declare war on US.gov

A record number of malicious hacking attempts were made this month, and anti-American groups are responsible.

So says Mi2g, the London-based security consultancy, which notes that US government on-line computers belonging to the House of Representatives, Department of Agriculture, Department of Education, National Park Service, NASA and the US Geological Survey were attacked in September.

According to Mi2g, malicious hacker groups such as S4t4n1c_S0uls, USG, WFD, EgyptianHackers, Arab VieruZ, MHA, The Bugz and FBH, as responsible for many anti-Israeli and anti-Indian attacks, as well as the US targets.

Mi2g has recorded 9,011 digital attacks to date in September, following previous record highs of 4,904 and 5,830 recorded in July and August of this year, compared with 3,499 and 2,820 for the same months last year. September 2001 saw a huge decline in malicious hacking activity with just 816 attacks recorded. This fall is attributed to the aftershock surrounding 911.

This month, US-registered domains suffered the most, with 4,157 attacks, well ahead of the number two nation on the list Brazil which suffered 835 attacks. The UK, Germany and India were next most popular targets, with less than 400 attacks each.

Mi2g also reports that systems running Microsoft Windows suffered more attacks than all other operating systems combined, with only 1,740 attacks on Linux, 933 attacks on BSD and 229 attacks on Solaris.

"Many hacker groups, in anonymous interviews with Mi2g, have said that they prefer attacking Linux systems and very rarely target anything running Windows, simply because to do so is far too easy," claims Jan Andresen of Mi2g. "Those hacking for intellectual gain or fun will generally be attracted to the greater challenge associated with hacking Linux systems."

"Hacker groups with political motivations target country or content specific on-line systems regardless of operating systems and this is where Windows comes under maximum fire."

According to DK Matai, chairman and chief executive officer of Mi2g, an increasing number of vulnerabilities are being found in generic operating systems, server software, applications and libraries deployed on mission critical systems. These flaws are often time consuming to patch and as a result, fixes on these holes are often delayed.

"Applying patches was traditionally relegated to the weekend. Invariably some mission critical machines don't get patched in time despite the best will to do so," said Matai. "Those are perfect doorways for hackers and they are being exploited ruthlessly."